full band interview (excerpts)

Slammin’ Sam: I'm standing here talking with James LaBrie from Toronto, Canada. You guys I understand just got into town, but on the way here, you got into a big, big bar brawl somewhere. Now where did that happen?

James LaBrie: [laughs] Oh my God! Actually it happened I guess last Thursday night, and our audio technician right here was a big culprit of our bar brawl. What happened was we were in Fergus Falls. We were getting ready to go to Detroit Lakes and do the big outdoor July 4th festival, and needless to say, we got some rednecks that came on to us and started putting us down because of our long hair. One thing led on to another – and even their ladies got involved and started calling us every name in the book.

SS: The thing where you get the women hopping on their backs going, “Hit him John! Hit him! He’s no good!” and slapping them and all that.

JL: Oh yeah. Curses and everything. Every name you can think of, which I can't say on the air, but anyway... So what happened was it led up to a little bit of scrapping. There was quite a few of us and there was a few of them. It was nuts; it was a true-blue rock-and-roll ‘Spinal Tap’ scene.

SS: James you look like what you're doing man.

JL: [laughs] I guess so! I had fun. At the same time having fun and thinking how ridiculous it was. It was quite an experience.

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Kevin Moore: I think so. We did have one album out before this that kind of went nowhere, so it wasn't overnight. We've been together for eight years. We play different songs from the first album I was just talking about. [JP starts playing ‘Puppies on Acid’] These and many more sample songs you will never hear on the radio, until we came out with [JP starts playing ‘Ytse Jam’] our first single that we thought was just going to be college radio tune. [JP starts playing ‘Pull Me Under’ and MP joins in]

Mike Portnoy: This is what it's like at our soundchecks.

SS: Mike Portnoy you're from Long Island too, right? What are the bars like in Long Island you played? You liked those bars up there?

KM: There's not many of them left. There used to be a big bar scene out there but now there's very few left.

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SS: John Petrucci, I know you are from Long Island also. What is this you’re playing?

John Petrucci: I'm playing an Ibanez guitar.

SS: OK. I want you to pick a word out of these three words: spontaneity, creativity or production... or ass.

JP: Oh my God. I think spontinuity! [laughs]

SS: Spontinuity. That's a good one – we like making up new words here at the X.

JP: Spontinuity and contaneity I believe.

SS: You play Long Island a lot before you hooked up with these guys?

JP: Actually I grew up with these guys, so we’ve been playing since we we're in diapers.

SS: Mike Portnoy on drums, who also calls Long Island home. So what kind of kit do you play? What do you think of these?

Mike Portnoy: Well it's funny that this is a Mapex kit you have in here. I just switched over to Mapex. I'm still using Tama which I've used for ten years or so, but the lovely people at Mapex are building me a new kit, so this was a nice little sample.

SS: Kevin, where do you wanna be in five years with this band?

KM: Brooklyn!

SS: Can you label what you do?

KM: Can I label what I do? Mike can you label what I do?

MP: What he does is usually he gets behind the keyboards and slams them and plays them, and that's what he does.

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SS: So you guys are just here to do the show tonight at City Lights and then onto where? Anybody just yell it out – where you going after here?

MP, KM and MP: Pittsburgh!

MP: We’re slowly heading home.

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SS: Anything you wanna tell anybody before you close this out?

JP: The saying on Mike’s drum kit is not meant to offend anybody! [laughs]

SS: Wait a minute – I gotta ask you about this. The saying on the front of Mike’s drum kit is not meant to offend anybody?

MP: I have a sign on my drum kit tonight because a favorite athlete of mine is locked up in the state. It has nothing to do with racism, has nothing to do with male-female thing; it's just that I'm a huge boxing fan. I love Mike Tyson and I'm dying to see him fight again. So anybody that comes out tonight, I have a sign on my kit dedicated to him. It's not meant to offend anybody, it's just because I want to see the man fight again.